My apologies; I didn't realize it would take this long to get out. To everyone that's reviewed, thank you uber-bunches! Also, please check my new AN in the first chapter; I've updated it to give some more specific disclaimers/warnings.

Feedback is always loved. If you spot any mistakes, or have some grievances with the way I've interpreted some Transformers lore, then please feel free to inform me. Or just tell me you want me to continue; I'm not really picky. On with the show!

All of Bee's convo is © someone that isn't me. Quote © Bob Marley.

Secondhand Sparks

Chapter One: Don't Worry, Bee Happy!

Don't worry about a thing - every little thing is gonna be alright.

So. A traitor.

The word left behind a sour taste, even in her thoughts. Traitor. Turncoat. Back-stabber. Judas.

They'd told her all about Starscream. His repeated attempts to usurp Megatron were somewhat legendary, and from what she had gathered, sounded like the quintessential Decepticon - conniving, power-hungry, and hell-bent on destruction. Built-to-order evil; no ifs, ands or buts.

But after what she'd just learned -

There was a whole new level to the game, now. An undercurrent of sinister purpose lay behind those red optics, and it wasn't because they'd been programmed that way.

They chose it.

The word – traitor – implied a decision made, a turn of conscience. These weren't just machines anymore, albeit ones with their own quirky personalities and strengths and weaknesses.

Not that she'd ever really thought of them as simply machines – you'd have to be deaf, dumb and freakin' blind to think that. But...Ratchet had once told her just a little about their origins, enough for her to assume that the Autobots had indeed been built for something other than war. And the Decepticons – like she said, built-to-order evil. Weapons from their sparking. Destruction was their main objective, programmed into their central processing units.

But for an Autobot to actually change sides, change his mind, change his primary function of being, to that of a Deception?

And just when she'd thought she had it all figured out, too – something like this comes along to bite you on the ass.

She stared blankly down at the spiral notebook in front of her, running her pencil absently up and down the metal rings. Half-sketched doodles of what could have been the anatomy diagram of a robot covered the page, complete with illegible handwriting to label the different pieces. It was mid-afternoon on a Friday, and she had barricaded – ah, bad word choice there – herself in the garage, sprawling out across the length of the threadbare couch in one corner.

It was one thing to have the blueprints already handy, and have the pieces all out in front of you, jumbled together in one crazy mess. Coming up with your very own Autonomous Robotic Organism was like...rubbing your stomach while patting your head while eating sushi with chopsticks while riding a horse bareback and blindfolded...you get the idea.

She stared for another minute, and when the drawings and words starting all bleeding together, she flopped down face-first onto the paper, moaning.

There had to be some way she could make sense of this chaos.

With a shuffling of papers, she twisted around until she was on her back, letting one leg dangle off the edge of the couch. She stared blankly up into the dark rafters, idly drumming her fingers on her stomach.

They had assumed she would have him rebuilt according to his original format, but she had other plans. What they would think of her idea she hadn't a clue, but she was hoping it wouldn't be met with disapproval and raised voices. If she could get the idea past Optimus, then she was practically in the clear – if their Prime approved, Ratchet could hardly refuse. He could, however, throw a few wrenches in her plans – and she meant that in the most literal sense. Mikaela didn't want to have to use Optimus as leverage; she liked and respected the sardonic medic, and prayed that she wouldn't have to resort to blackmail to gain his cooperation.

She swung her leg idly, but the rhythmic whump-whump of it hitting the couch irritated her. Exhaling noisily, she hoisted her feet up over the arm of the couch, and inspected the tips of her worn sneakers from where she lay. She needed new ones, she thought idly, wiggling her toes inside the fraying footwear. They were faded red Chuck Taylors, more pink now than anything. She didn't wear them out anymore; they were strictly for working in the garage. Mud, grease and tar covered a good portion of them, and the soles were almost nonexistent. They were getting a little too snug up front, and her toes occasionally cramped, but they were one of the last things her dad ever gotten her legitimately, and they were special.

She clicked the heels together, three times in a row, and smiled to herself. Lifting her eyes back to the ceiling, she blinked back the sudden prickling sensation that threatened to turn into tears. This wouldn't do, she decided, and pulled herself up into a sitting position, feet still resting on the arm of the couch. She leaned towards them, wrapping her fingers around the soles and tugging, stretching out her back. She stayed that way for a minute, letting her body sag against her legs, and took a deep, bracing breath. When she looked back up, intending to stand and take her work back up to her room, something caught her eye just beyond her toes.

The bright blue of the tarp stood out against the dark stone walls of the garage like a banner, and she ran her eyes across the shape she knew was hidden beneath its folds. It was her father's pride and joy, a customized Ducati Monster from '96, and she wasn't allowed to even think of it until he was released (so said Gramma Jodi). It may not have been the most popular bike in the world, nor the fastest, but her dad loved it like a second child. He'd promised her a ride as the first thing they'd do together when he got out, and she could hardly stand the wait.

The Monster was an old childhood memory, one of a few not tainted by her mom or her dad's so-called business. He'd bought it legit from the dealership, brand new off the floor, a few months after her mom had left. An act of defiance, she supposed, though she never was sure where he got the money – it wasn't like they had it to throw around, after all. But he had all the papers for it, and a license, and the cops never could find any evidence that pointed towards his more shady dealings. It was one of the few honest things of his that she had left, like her worn-out shoes.

Blowing out another sigh, she swung her legs back to the floor and made to stand up. Beneath her hand, the notebook crinkled, and she paused, looking down at it for a minute, gaze skimming over the sketches and half-formed thoughts that she'd jotted down. Blinked. Then she glanced back up, over at the tarp. Back down again. Studied one doodle in particular, of a faceless rider bent over the handlebars of a half-formed sportsbike.

Slowly, she raised her head to stare at the tarp again, and felt like an idiot.

She'd being going about this from the wrong direction.

"…It's doable, I suppose."

"So this could work? I know it's a lot smaller frame than the original, but I didn't really think it mattered at this point." And she cast a pointed glance at the living corpse that resided in one corner of Ratchet's medbay. It's – his – limbs were placed in an orderly fashion below the pulverized, warped torso that housed the faint spark and little else. No, she didn't think it mattered that he would soon be downgraded from a four-door to a motorcycle – his body was so scrapped that it practically gave her a clean slate to work with.

Ratchet gave a rusty-sounding sigh. "It doesn't. Although why you still want to do this is beyond my logic processors, but Optimus approves, and Ironhide's backing him. I can't really argue with that." He sounded almost as cross as when he'd first heard of the absurd idea to reformat Barricade. Thankfully, that particular fit hadn't lasted very long, and it had been far from his beloved supply of wrenches.

Using the transformation cog had been Mikaela's suggestion, something that would make this project move along much more swiftly. At first she'd tried to assemble an alt form for the offline Decepticon, attempting to use parts of cars or SUVs in order to structure his frame. That plan had fallen through faster than one of Starscream's when she realized just how complex it would be.

Putting together a protoform, a basic outline of a body, would both take less time and also put her knowledge of Cybertronian physiology to the test, without breaking her brain. It was, surprisingly, ordered similarly to that of a human body – besides the obvious head, torso and limbs, there were veins and nerve clusters placed similarly to hers. To build any machine was to start with the frame, the chassis, and then move on to the outer components. The transformation cog would take care of the rest. They simply had to activate it, and scan the vehicle of choice, and presto! Instant alt mode. She was still mentally kicking herself for not thinking of it sooner.

And why was she doing this in the first place, they'd all wondered?

Really, it was the challenge. She'd fed the you-could-use-all-the-mechs-you-can-get line to Optimus, and of course she'd meant it – so far there had been no new arrivals, no responses whatsoever to Prime's broadcast, and they had to step up their game fast before the Decepticons made their next move. But she also wanted to be useful, not just the girlfriend of the guy who saved the world. She had plans, and they didn't involve sitting on the sidelines.

So she would add a new weapon to the Autobots' arsenal. Courtesy of a reprogramming virus that was ready to be placed in Barricade's central processing unit, once his body was complete they would have another soldier to wield against their enemies, and give them an edge that they desperately needed.

As to the material dilemma – if they couldn't rebuild Jazz, just how was she planning on building a whole new mech? - she had an answer ready for them. She'd dug deep into the 'net, even calling up Glen, the computer savant, to help her out. He, being the absolute geek that he was, knew exactly what she was looking for, and gave her all the info he could track down on the special material.

Adamantium was mostly speculation and urban legend at that point, but she'd heard things through gear heads she knew on the Web. It was a promising start, and when she put all the information in front of Ratchet, he'd immediately done his own research on the mythical metal. His own routine scan of the Earth as he'd entered the atmosphere all those months ago confirmed what she'd discovered. It was with a shiver in his processors that he realized this, along with the last remaining shard of All Spark, could be the answer to Jazz's predicament.

He looked down at the notebook, so tiny in his enormous hands, and eyed the sketches there with something like trepidation. It could work, he thought ruefully; they just needed to figure out how to handle the material. They would have to prepare molds in advance – once the substance cooled, there wouldn't be a degree hot enough to reshape it. Only the mech's nannites would be able to alter it, in order to configure the alt mode to the protoform.

Repairing nannites were a thing of miracles, in his opinion, despite his firm belief that science was the answer to just about everything. They could break substances down to the most miniscule particles, and pull them back together seamlessly, leaving no trace that there was ever more than one piece. He'd had to rely on them almost more times than he could count for a vast percentage of his more delicate operations, and they almost always came through - it simply depended on the mech. They had to want to survive, and no amount of repair and steady, dedicated maintenance could change the outcome if a body gave up the will to fight. He only hoped that once he downloaded the reformatting virus, some of the old Prowl's determination would resurface, and provide the necessary measures it would take to finish the process.

He glanced back up at the human that stood so confidently before him, and scowled. She didn't even blink, which made him just made him glare harder. A cool smile was her only response, and he muttered something unintelligible under his breath, and handed her back the notebook.

"So when do you want to start?"

Tracking down Adamantium was only the beginning of what would become one of the longest, most arduous, and ultimately most life-changing missions she'd ever taken part in. Anything that could top it would be like…rebuilding Cybertron, she reckoned later.

Of course, the whole time it was happening she never gave it too much thought, save for the occasional resurfacing in the Real World, when Sam would drag her away from the lab and out to a movie, or bowling, or some other activity that his parents deemed 'respectable.' Not that there was anything wrong with any of that, but it always put the reality of her situation in sharp relief, causing her to pause and wonder just what the hell she was thinking, trying to build her own robot.

Then Sam would glance down at the hand he was holding, the once baby-smooth skin marked by growing burns and scratches, and frown just a little, and she would scowl back at him. "It's what I want to do," would be her usual reply. She'd tried explaining it to him, and to an extent he understood. The need to be helpful, to pull your own weight amongst an alien species that consisted of minds vastly superior to your own. To feel like you were contributing, and not just along for the ride. He saw all of that, but still protested, up to a point.

"You really need to get out of the Garage more, y'know? Mom's been complaining – she wants your Gramma over for dinner again, and not just her this time. Seeing as how you're my girlfriend, it's kind of a given that you would be there. At my house, eating my food. Partaking in family outings. Or innings, I guess, I don't know what you'd call it. Whatever, you should come."

He'd gotten a little better at catching himself before he started rambling, but still managed a mouthful sometimes. It made her smile and roll her eyes most of the time, like now. "I already said I was sorry for that. I just get caught up in my work, is all."

"And I get that. It's hot that you like your work so much. But do you think you could like it a little less often? It's not like he's going to just get up and walk away while you're not there…is he? I mean, he doesn't even have legs yet, so I don't think he can really run too well – "

"Sam. He's not even awake, much less functioning. That's why I want to get this done, so we can have more time to ourselves." A little white lie, not entirely false, but not an absolute truth, either. She adored spending time with Sam. He actually made her feel worth something. Like a real person, not just a possession, and it was a feeling she treasured. And the fact that encouraged her passion for machines was something she'd never had before. His utter devotion and enthusiasm for her caught her off-guard, made her a little uncertain. What were his motives? Was he building up to something? When was he going to start plying her for sex?

All this and an alien race in my backyard, she thought sardonically. How did she ever get to be so lucky?

They were never far from her mind. Even when she was out with her clique, an occurrence that became more and more rare with time, she was laying out specs, drawing mental energon lines in the back of her head. One time she dropped her moped keys in her soda, and she spat out a Cybertronian curse automatically, not thinking to correct herself. When she looked up from fishing them out of the drink, she met raised eyebrows and bemused smirks. "What?"

"Ever since you starting going with that Witticky kid, you've been acting like you got pulled from the Twilight Zone. And now, what, you two have your own language or something? That's sick, Mikaela."

Once school started again, things changed even more noticeably. She came to class one morning in the same shirt she'd worn yesterday, for starters, which got people talking for the next week. She'd resumed sitting with Sam and, she noted with a slight grimace, Miles, which was also a point for gossip, though not as much as it had been last year.

Her personal favorite was the coverall fiasco. She'd actually gone so far as to spend the night at the Autobots' warehouse, and the only extra pair of clothes she had with her had gasoline spilled all down their front, an incident that had involved an arguing Ironhide and Ratchet. To add to the general madness, she'd gotten woken up late by a grouchy Ironhide, who succinctly informed her that he was not her personal alarm clock, and had to break several traffic laws in order to beat the final bell. She'd ended up wearing her working coveralls, and just about died of embarrassment when she stepped in through the doors to find every pair of eyes glued to her.

Sam had saved her, finding her after first period and lending her his gym shirt – he made Miles give up an extra pair of shorts he'd had stashed in his locker. All in all, it was an unfortunately memorable day. It did make Miles finally warm up to her a little, when she thanked him humbly and profusely for his pants, and bestowed a kiss on his glowing cheek.

Of course, when she got home that afternoon her Gramma gave her an earful. She had called her the night before (more like early that morning), and made sure the older lady knew where she was, so she wouldn't go running off to the cops to report her missing. Not that Gramma Jodi would actually do it – she was understandably wary of the police, after the treatment her son had received at their hands. None of that, however, stopped the woman from venting her considerable spleen on her granddaughter. From now on, she snapped, if those aliens had any consideration for an old woman's heart at all, they'd do her the courtesy of giving her only grandchild a ride home at night. Then she proceeded to call up Optimus and give him the same speech, which he received with a generous amount of patience.

One day she sat down and realized that it had been six whole months since she'd started her project. It boggled her a little, that so much time had passed and seemingly so little had been done. In her eyes, at least; Ratchet claimed that they were making excellent progress, and she had to take his word for it. The molds had been completed, and they were refining the Adamantium now. Soon they would be melting it down, and piece by piece the Decepticon would become whole again.

She shivered a little when she contemplated the process that would render him useful. They were going to have to infect him and wipe his processing core clean, in order for them to bend him to their will – any useful data would be filtered through and stored separately. It was a wholly unpleasant thought, one she ignored when she could, in favor of the more physical aspect of her work.

She had some ideas on how to modify the bike, adding a frail for one thing – he was going to need somewhere to fit his armor, she supposed, and the extra engine covering would do nicely. It seemed almost a crime to cover up such a beautifully naked machine, but sacrifices had to be made. And honestly, the whole frame could stand to be widened; if they wanted him to have any bulk whatsoever, they'd have to. She could tinker with the transforming cog and see what she came up with. There should be a way to enlarge the scale – Ratchet could help with that; he was the more mathematically-inclined between the two of them.

So she submersed herself in her work, and as time went on she slowly lost sight of the little details – the late nights, the missed dates with Sam, the sidelong glances at school. Things that used to mean the world to her suddenly took a back seat to her new obsession, and it wasn't until dinner with the Witwickys one evening that it all came crashing down on her.

"So, Mikaela, what exactly are your plans after high school?" Judy Witwicky delicately speared a head of broccoli and popped it in her mouth, never once taking her wide, assessing eyes off the girl.

The same thing it's been since, oh, junior high? She thought to herself sardonically, and repressed a sigh. It seemed like no matter how many times she tried to rebuff them, the Witwickys held on to this topic like a junkyard dog with a particularly juicy trespasser. For what felt like the five hundredth time that evening, she smiled her General Audience smile, and set her glass back down. "Mrs. Witwicky, I really just want to go to junior college – get a degree in business or financing." Her usual answer, perhaps edged with the tiniest bit of exasperation. How many times did she have to say it before this woman would believe it, anyway?

From out the corner of her eye, she caught Sam's wink, and let her smile deepen for a minute, before turning back to her plate of lasagna and mixed vegetables. To her right, Ron Witwicky picked through his own plate dubiously, eyeing the lasagna in particular. "Hon, you sure this meat is cooked all the way through?"

"Oh, for the Lord's sake, Ron, I do know how to cook," Judy retorted, stabbing said food with a little more force than necessary. Forking a mouthful, she chewed thoughtfully for a minute, before eyeing her own plate a little suspiciously. Beside Mikaela, Sam groaned.

"It's perfect, Mom, seriously. This is grade-A grub right here, huh?" And he shot a look at Mikaela. She nodded vigorously, making sure to take an extra-large bite of her food, and gave Judy the thumbs-up. This seemed to pacify her somewhat, for she turned her full attention back to the girl, and spoke as if their conversation had never been interrupted.

"Yes, but what do you want to do? I mean, obviously you don't want to work in that smelly old garage the rest of your life."

Mikaela felt that familiar twitch in her eyebrow, and her lips drew back into what she knew wasn't a nice smile. She felt more than saw Sam start beside her, but ignored him. More for his sake than anything, she made an effort to compose herself, smoothing out her napkin with a deliberate air of calm, and straightening the silverware that lay on top of it, all the while counting to ten in her head.

When she looked back up, her smile wasn't quite as twisted as it had been, but it never reached her eyes. Taking a deep breath, she finally responded. "Actually, Mrs. Witwicky, I really do. I fully intend to have my own garage by the time I'm thirty." She sat back in her chair, relishing the comically surprised expression that the older woman wore. "That's why I want to go into business so badly. If I'm going to run a successful company, I'll need to know how to manage it in the first place."

On her other side, Ron Witwicky slumped in his chair. "So you don't want to be a lawyer?" He asked, somewhat plaintively. He and his wife had agreed that, if Mikaela was going to be sticking around, it may come in handy to have a lawyer in the family or at least on a first-name basis. Hopefully Sam wouldn't screw up too badly and alienate her. Really, it would be just their luck to need some legal help and get stuck with a vengeful ex.

The girl in question blew out an exasperated breath, not bothering to disguise it. "No, Mr. Witwicky, I'm pretty sure I don't want to be a lawyer. As much incentive as I might have –" and here she glanced at Sam very quickly, to which he responded with an apologetic grimace – "I really, really don't want to sit behind a desk all day and clean up other people's messes." Although she was fairly certain that Ron and Judy knew about her father – Sam may not have ever known had Simmons not let that fun little detail slip, but that didn't mean that his parents were totally oblivious to the goings-on at their only son's school – they had never actually said anything to her. Which surprised her (okay, it actually shocked the hell out of her; she was expecting at least a joke from Mrs. Witwicky, but so far nothing).

And then Sam went and ruined everything by doing what he did best – letting his brain compute directly to his mouth without using that handy-dandy thing called a filter. "Well, you're already working for the government, so you're probably picking up some tips from Ratchet – didn't he used to be some sort of diplomaaaat...ic…d…di…

damn."

He slumped down in his chair, muttering the oath into his lasagna. Mikaela stared at him, a little bit irritated and not really surprised. Vaguely she registered his mother sputtering into her wine, and his father rapping out a sharp "Excuse me?"

Slaggit, they weren't supposed to know about that. Nice, Witwicky. Real nice.

She swallowed back the acid that rose in her throat, and grit her teeth against the harsh words that threatened to escape. Instead, she turned back to the table's other occupants, ignoring Sam for the time being, and proceeded to do damage control.

It was no secret at her house that she worked underneath the Autobots' authority, and by association, the Army. What she did and everything she learned there stayed at their makeshift base, of course, but her Gramma knew where she went and that she worked (unpaid, of course) alongside government-appointed agents. Not literally, because if she had to spend that much time around the current liaison, she was going to pull an Ironhide and kick a damn tank halfway across the state out of sheer frustration. But officially (or unofficially, if you wanted to wanted to look at it that way), she was under the employ of the United States government.

And as of right now the Witwickys hated them with the fiery passion of a thousand suns.

So no, them having any idea that she worked with the people who had disrupted their lives so rudely and unashamedly (discounting Director Keller's personal and, she thought, rather heartfelt apology to them in person for all the chaos that had been dumped into their laps) was not high up on her list of 'things to discuss with your boyfriend's parents.' It was way down there towards the bottom, along with 'my dad's a jailbird and if Sam and several very indignant Autobots hadn't stepped up for me, I would probably be right there with him.'

Sitrep: screwed.

Mikaela did her level best not to squirm beneath the two gimlet stares being directed towards her. She'd faced down guns bigger than this table, she'd faced Ratchet when she accidentally snipped a neuron cable in his neck and made him suffer through two days of everyone asking him why he kept twitching like that – she could take on a couple of disapproving humans, right?

She swallowed nervously and gave them her most charming, shit-eating grin.

Half an hour later, her ears were ringing, and she was curled up in Bumblebee's back seat, fuming and biting back hot, angry tears. How dare they. How dare they presume to know what she wanted. They didn't even know her.

You're not a kid anymore, Mikaela. You have to be realistic.

They're going to pull you in and suck you dry, and then you'll be left all on your own – what about your grandmother?

You need to get a real job. Hiding out in a garage and playing with cars and giant aliens isn't going to get you anywhere in life.

Do you even see your friends anymore? What do you mean, those things are your friends? I'm talking about your own kind!

You can't trust them – eventually they're going to realize that they've got better things to do than play around with you, and start experimenting on you, and don't you come crying to me when they cut you up and study your appendix!

…Granted, Judy had been a little tipsy. That didn't make it hurt any less, though.

Poor Sam, he was outside the garage door, calling to her to let him in so they could talk. And he had tried so valiantly to defend both her and Bumblebee. But the mech had locked the door up tight, and he couldn't get in. With a snarl, she scrubbed furiously at the tears that pricked at her eyes. She tried to turn her tell-tale sniffle into a casual snort, but it didn't quite work. In the background, she could hear Bee's radio playing something soft and wordless; anything with lyrics would be sure to get her wound up again, and she needed like hell to calm down.

Trying to distract herself, she leaned into the front seat to check her mascara; it hadn't done much but get a little blurry. Still, she dabbed at it with the hem of her blouse, and Bee obligingly crooned 'you're beautiful' in James Blunt's voice. Sighing, she patted the seat beside her. "Thanks, Bee. Even though I don't think you really know the difference between 'drowned cat' and 'runway model,' but it's appreciated."

His engine sputtered, sounding a little indignant. She had to smile at the sound, something familiar and dear to her. And for some reason it struck her, really hit her, that yes, she was inside a car, talking to it, and it was talking back. Not like the junkers she spent hours beneath the hoods of; they had their own language, one of gasping rattles and pings and chugs, an unconscious, mechanized tongue, from inanimate objects she'd spent a lifetime learning about.

But she was sitting inside a 2007 concept Chevy Camaro, chatting away, and it was responding to her the way any other human would.

Without warning, a giggle bubbled out of her, and then another. Suddenly, she was clinging to the front passenger seat, laughing so hard she couldn't support herself, sounding absolutely hysterical even to her own ears. Bumblebee's engine revved, and the seats beneath her shifted some, and she knew if he was in his true form, he'd be cocking his head in confusion. Still she couldn't stop, and she pressed her damp face to the warm leather, trying to catch her breath.

"S-sorry, Bee...I just think I might've gone crazy for a second." She still quivered with suppressed laughter, and she finally leaned back, sinking into the seat. She swiped halfheartedly at her face, not really caring about her makeup anymore, but trying to make an effort.

"What's up, pussycat?" Queried the radio, and for some reason it almost set her off again. With an effort, she forced it down, and took a deep, cleansing breath.

"I think it just hit me – how ridiculous and seriously fucked up this whole thing is. I mean, here I am worrying about disappointing my boyfriend's parents with career choices, while sitting inside a giant alien car." She snorted, and pushed back her hair.

"There's no need for you to worry," sang Aaron Neville, and Mikaela smiled a bit. The song continued –

"If you worry about tomorrow,

It will only bring you sorrow…"

She hummed along absently, and suddenly, like clouds lifting, she felt a little better. Not completely, but it was a start. It was true, she decided. Who were they to make her worry and feel bad about herself? She was an adult, dammit, and she knew how to make her own choices. And why was she so worked up about it? Two people's opinion wasn't the end of the world – she'd been there, done that, ripped up the t-shirt. It was like comparing the engine of her moped to…well, Bumblebee's.

They didn't know anything about her, or her life, or what she felt. If she wanted to spend the rest of her life in a greasy, cluttered, noisy garage and work on alien cars, then she'd go right ahead and do it. Worrying about what could come next was like trying to – trying to see the future at the bottom of a wine bottle, as her Gramma liked to say sometimes. All you got was a giddy feeling and a huge headache come morning. Pointless.

"So?" Chirped the radio, and she let her smile widen. He might not have said much, but it was enough to get her head back on straight. He really was one of a kind, she decided, and ran a thumb down the detailed stitching in the seat. Bee shuddered happily and tilted on his carriage a little.

"So I think you're right. I'm not going to let a couple of squishies tell me what to do. I know my own mind, and trying to worry about it won't get me anything but a headache."

The horn beeped, a sharp, encouraging staccato of notes that reverberated in her ears. With a hoarse chuckle, she shook her head and popped open her door. She squared her shoulders and held her breath for a moment, letting it back out in a hearty gust. The Camaro rocked happily, and she moved to pat him. The fine-tuned engine purred in contentment.

She really needed to apologize to Sam, at least, for storming off the way she did. He'd done his best to buffer her from his parents' drunken ire, but all he'd seemed to do was make things worse. Still, not his fault. He was, at heart, a Momma's Boy, and it seemed to impede his stronger rebellious impulses at times. Despite the frag-fest tonight had turned out to be, it was really one of the things she loved about him – his devotion to his parents. It was something she could relate to, and she respected him for it. "I guess you should let him in now."

He did so, to the tune of the Black-Eyed Peas' "Let's Get It Started!" She snorted and shook her head, and turned to face a very worried Sam.

TBC.

Not meant to be a cliffie, sorry. I don't know if next chap will pick up immediately after this or not…maybe y'all could tell me what you want. Also, I so didn't mean to turn the Witwickys into close-minded uber-bigots. It's more of a plot device than anything. They'll come around, eventually.